Politics

When the Portlaoise scandal broke, I was horrified on behalf of the women caught up in it – and, since I can statistically imagine myself being in their shoes one day, scared shitless at the idea of ever getting breast cancer in Ireland. But I was also naively hopeful that something really positive would come out of this – that the HSE would, somehow, fix it so this didn’t happen in the future, finally get Breast Check rolled out as promised, and deliver expedient care to the women who now urgently needed it.

I know. I can hear you laughing.

But I was horrified anew to do the math and find that 49 days after seeing her GP about a lump in her leaking breast, AL still cannot even get an appointment for a basic diagnostic test. I was fucking flabbergasted, however, to read that this is because there are now NO screening ultrasound services in the Midlands. None. They’ve all been shut.

THAT is the response to the Portlaoise debacle.

“We’re really sorry one of our regional hospitals bungled delivery of services to 97 women, thus seriously endangering their lives. Rather than fixing the fucker, we’ve decided to just withdraw the service, from every hospital, for every woman, thus endangering the lot of you. That will teach you to complain.”

If it sparks a crisis when 97 women get sub-optimal breast care, what should it spark when all of the Midland’s women get no breast care?

So apparently Ireland is to be the first country in the world to ban standard incandescent light bulbs; we’ll be CFL-only next year.

I am in love with this idea. In fact, I am increasingly enamoured with all kinds of forced activism, or perhaps more accurately, forced environmentalism. I love the plastic bag charge. I love the WEEE charge, too, especially the part where the retailer has to take your old electrical appliance back for recycling.

I wonder, though, how many people really take advantage of that. Many people, I suspect, just dump their old toaster into the bin to clutter up a landfill instead of dragging it off to Argos to be recycled. That’s why I like the lightblub scheme; it removes the can’t be arsed option.